GENTLEMAN
'Let the peace of God rule in your hearts,--the peace of God that
passeth all understanding.'--_Paul_.
John Bunyan is always at his very best in allegory. In some other
departments of work John Bunyan has had many superiors; but when he lays
down his head on his hand and begins to dream, as we see him in some of
the old woodcuts, then he is alone; there is no one near him. We have
not a few greater divines in pure divinity than John Bunyan. We have
some far better expositors of Scripture than John Bunyan, and we have
some far better preachers. John Bunyan at his best cannot open up a deep
Scripture like that prince of expositors, Thomas Goodwin. John Bunyan in
all his books has nothing to compare for intellectual strength and for
theological grasp with Goodwin's chapter on the peace of God, in his
sixth book in _The Work of the Holy Ghost_. John Bunyan cannot set forth
divine truth in an orderly method and in a built-up body like John Owen.
He cannot Platonize divine truth like his Puritan contemporary, John
Howe. He cannot soar high as heaven in the beauty and the sweetness of
gospel holiness like Jonathan Edwards. He has nothing of the
philosophical depth of Richard Hooker, and he has nothing of the vast
learning of Jeremy Taylor. But when John Bunyan's mind and heart begin
to work through his imagination, then--
'His language is not ours.
'Tis my belief God speaks; no tinker hath such powers.'
1. In the beginning of his chapter on 'Speaking peace,' Thomas Goodwin
tells his reader that he is going to fully couch all his intendments
under a metaphor and an allegory. But Goodwin's reader has read and re-
read the great chapter, and has not yet discovered where the metaphor and
the allegory came in and where they went out. But Bunyan does not need
to advertise his reader that he is going to couch his teaching in his
imagination.
'But having now my method by the end,
Still, as I pulled it came: and so I penned
It down; until at last it came to be
For length and breadth the bigness that you see.'
The Blessed Prince, he begins, did also ordain a new officer in the town,
and a goodly person he was. His name was Mr. God's-peace. This man was
set over my Lord Will-be-will, my Lord Mayor, Mr. Recorder, the
subordinate preacher, Mr. Mind, and over all the natives of the town of
Mansoul. Himself was not a native of the town, but came with the Prince
from the court above. He was a great acquaintance of Captain Credence
and Captain Good-hope; some say they were kin, and I am of that opinion
too. This man, as I said, was made governor of the town in general,
especially over the castle, and Captain Credence was to help him there.
And I made great observation of it, that so long as all things went in
the town as this sweet-natured gentleman would have them go, the town was
in a most happy condition. Now there were no jars, no chiding, no
interferings, no unfaithful doings in all the town; every man in Mansoul
kept close to his own employment. The gentry, the officers, the
soldiers, and all in place, observed their order. And as for the women
and the children of the town, they followed their business joyfully. They
would work and sing, work and sing, from morning till night; so that
quite through the town of Mansoul now nothing was to be found but
harmony, quietness, joy, and health. And this lasted all the summer. I
shall step aside at this point and shall let Jonathan Edwards comment on
this sweet-natured gentleman and his heavenly name. 'God's peace has an
exquisite sweetness,' says Edwards. 'It is exquisitely sweet because it
has so firm a foundation on the everlasting rock. It is sweet also
because it is so perfectly agreeable to reason. It is sweet also because
it riseth from holy and divine principles, which, as they are the virtue,
so are they the proper happiness of man. This peace is exquisitely sweet
also because of the greatness of the good that the saints enjoy, being no
other than the infinite bounty and fulness of that God who is the
Fountain of all good. It is sweet also because it shall be enjoyed to
perfection hereafter.' An enthusiastic student has counted up the number
of times that this divine word 'sweetness' occurs in Edwards, and has
proved that no other word of the kind occurs so often in the author of
_True Virtue_ and _The Religious Affections_. And I can well believe it;
unless the 'beauty of holiness' runs it close. Still, this sweet-natured
gentleman will continue to live for us in his government and jurisdiction
in Mansoul and in John Bunyan even more than in Jonathan Edwards.
2. 'Now Mr. God's-peace, the new Governor of Mansoul, was not a native
of the town; he came down with his Prince from the court above.' 'He was
not a native'--let that attribute of his be written in letters of gold on
every gate and door and wall within his jurisdiction. When you need the
governor and would seek him at any time or in any place in all the town
and cannot find him, recollect yourself where he came from: he may have
returned thither again. John Bunyan has couched his deepest instruction
to you in that single sentence in which he says, 'Mr. God's-peace was not
a native of the town.' John Bunyan has gathered up many gospel
Scriptures into that single allegorical sentence. He has made many old
and familiar passages fresh and full of life again in that one
metaphorical sentence. It is the work of genius to set forth the wont
and the well known in a clear, simple, and at the same time surprising,
light like that. There is a peace that is native and natural to the town
of Mansoul, and to understand that peace, its nature, its grounds, its
extent, and its range, is most important to the theologian and to the
saint. But to understand the peace of God, that supreme peace, the peace
that passeth all understanding,--that is the highest triumph of the
theologian and the highest wisdom of the saint. The prophets and the
psalmists of the Old Testament are all full of the peace that God gave to
His people Israel. My peace I give unto you, says our Lord also. Paul
also has taken up that peace that comes to us through the blood of
Christ, and has made it his grand message to us and to all sinful and sin-
disquieted men. And John Bunyan has shown how sure and true a successor
of the apostles of Christ he is, just in his portrait of this
sweet-natured gentleman who was not a native of Mansoul, but who came
from that same court from which Emmanuel Himself came. And it is just
this outlandishness of this sweet-natured gentleman; it is just this
heavenly origin and divine extraction of his that makes him sometimes and
in some things to surpass all earthly understanding. 'I am coming some
day soon,' said a divinity student to me the other Sabbath night, 'to
have you explain and clear up the atonement to me.' 'I shall be glad to
see you,' I said, 'but not on that errand.' No. Paul himself could not
do it. Paul said that the atonement and the peace of it passed all his
understanding. And John Bunyan says here that not the Prince only, but
his officer Mr. God's-peace also, was not native to the town of Mansoul,
but came straight down from heaven into that town--and what can the man
do who cometh after two kings like Paul and Bunyan? I have not forgotten
my Edwards where he says that the exquisite sweetness of this peace is
perfectly agreeable to reason. As, indeed, so it is. And yet, if reason
will have a clear and finished and all-round answer to all her
difficulties and objections and fault-findings, I fear she cannot have it
here. The time may come when our reason also shall be so enlarged, and
so sanctified, and so exalted, that she shall be able with all saints to
see the full mystery of that which in this present dispensation passeth
all understanding. But till then, only let God's peace enter our hearts
with God's Son, and then let our hearts say if that peace must not in
some high and deep way be according to the highest and the deepest
reason, since its coming into our hearts has produced in our hearts and
in our lives such reasonable, and right, and harmonious, and peaceful,
and every way joyful results.
3. Governor God's-peace had not many in the town of Mansoul to whom he
could confide all his thoughts and with whom he could consult. But there
were two officer friends of his stationed in the town with whom he was
every day in close correspondence, viz., the Captain Credence and the
Captain Good-hope. Their so close intimacy will not be wondered at when
it is known that those three officers had all come in together with
Emmanuel the Conqueror. Those three young captains had done splendid
service, each at the head of his own battalion, in the days of the
invasion and the conquest of Mansoul, and they had all had their present
titles, and privileges, and lands, and offices, patented to them on the
strength of their past services. The Captain Credence had all along been
the confidential aide-de-camp and secretary of the Prince. Indeed, the
Prince never called Captain Credence a servant at all, but always a
friend. The Prince had always conveyed his mind about all Mansoul's
matters first to Captain Credence, and then that confidential captain
conveyed whatever specially concerned God's-peace and Good-hope to those
excellent and trusty soldiers. Credence first told all matters to God's-
peace and then the two soon talked over Good-hope to their mind and
heart. Some say that the three officers, Credence, God's-peace, and Good-
hope, were kin, adds our historian, and I, he adds, am of that opinion
too. And to back up his opinion he takes an extract out of the Herald's
College books which runs thus: 'Romans, fifteenth and thirteenth: Now,
the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may
abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.' Some say the three
officers were of kin, and I am of that opinion too.
4. On account both of his eminent services and his great abilities, the
Prince saw it good to set Mr. God's-peace over the whole town. And thus
it was that the governor's jurisdiction extended and held not only over
the people of the town, but also over all the magistrates and all the
other officers of the town, such as my Lord Will-be-will, my Lord Mayor,
Mr. Recorder, Mr. Mind, and all. It needed all the governor's authority
and ability to keep his feet in his office over all the other rulers of
the town, but by far his greatest trouble always was with the Recorder.
Old Mr. Conscience, the Town Recorder, had a very difficult post to hold
and a very difficult part to play in that still so divided and still so
unsettled town. What with all those murderers and man-slayers, thieves
and prostitutes, skulkers and secret rebels, on the one hand, and with
Governor God's-peace and his so unaccountable and so autocratic ways, on
the other hand, the Recorder's office was no sinecure. All the
misdemeanours and malpractices of the town,--and they were happening
every day and every night,--were all reported to the Recorder; they were
all, so to say, charged home upon the Recorder, and he was held
responsible for them all; till his office was a perfect laystall and
cesspool of all the scum and corruption of the town. And yet, in would
come Governor God's-peace, without either warning or explanation, and
would demand all the Recorder's papers, and proofs, and affidavits, and
what not, it had cost him so much trouble to get collected and indorsed,
and would burn them all before the Recorder's face, and to his utter
confusion, humiliation, and silence. So autocratic, so despotic, so
absolute, and not-to-be-questioned was Governor God's-peace. The
Recorder could not understand it, and could barely submit to it; my Lord
Mayor could not understand it, and his clerk, Mr. Mind, would often
oppose it; but there it was: Mr. Governor God's-peace was set over them
all.
5. But the thing that always in the long-run justified the governorship
of Mr. God's-peace, and reconciled all the other officers to his
supremacy, was the way that the city settled down and prospered under his
benignant rule. All the other officers admitted that, somehow, his
promotion and power had been the salvation of Mansoul. They all extolled
their Prince's far-seeing wisdom in the selection, advancement, and
absolute seat of Mr. God's-peace. And it would ill have become them to
have said anything else; for they had little else to do but bask in the
sun and enjoy the honours and the emoluments of their respective offices
as long as Governor God's-peace held sway, and had all things in the city
to his own mind. Now, it was on all hands admitted, as we read again
with renewed delight, that there were no jars, no chiding, no
interferings, no unfaithful doings in the town of Mansoul; but every man
kept close to his own employment. The gentry, the officers, the
soldiers, and all in place, observed their orders. And as for the women
and children, they all followed their business joyfully. They would work
and sing, work and sing, from morning till night, so that quite through
the town of Mansoul now nothing was to be found but harmony, quietness,
joy, and health. What more could be said of any governorship of any town
than that? The Heavenly Court itself, out of which Governor God's-peace
had come down, was not better governed than that. Harmony, quietness,
joy, and health. No; the New Jerusalem itself will not surpass that.
'And this lasted all that summer.'